After studying classics and medicine, Nick Allen qualified in social
anthropology at Oxford. He then lectured at Durham and, from 1976 to 2001,
at Oxford, where he became Reader in the Social Anthropology of South Asia
at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. His D.Phil. thesis
was on the mythology and oral traditions of a Tibeto-Burman speaking community
in East Nepal. Apart from Himalayan comparativism, he has written on the
macro-history of kinship systems and on the French tradition in sociological
thought (Categories and classifications:
Maussian reflections on the social, Oxford, Berghahn, 2000).
His major research at present is on Indo-European cultural comparativism, and in
particular on the common origin of Sanskrit and ancient Greek epic.
[G. Schaufelberger's French translations in PDF format
of these essays are freely accessible, but you have to register for free at the
Carcara Editions website to download them]